KATIE HENRICKS - WOMEN'S SOCCER

It has been quite a while since I have reported to you all. I would just like to apologize for that. After the Conference USA Tournament, life has become one big race to catch up before the holiday break.

As you know, our team lost in the first round of our Conference USA Tournament ,which was held in El Paso, Texas. Going into the tournament, we felt good and with a good draw finding ourselves playing Rice again. Our team could not have been more excited.

When we arrived in El Paso, we trained and later that night there was a banquet for all the teams. There was food and live local entertainment at the banquet, which was quite neat. Awards were also given out, recognizing the players that had been voted on the All-Conference teams and the All-Academic team.

Being recognized from our women's team was freshman Allysha Chapman, who was part of the all-freshman team, myself for the second team, Sally Palmer for the first team and Jill Porto. These are just the few who were recognized, but as Coach Harbin talked about in a meeting with our team, we have so many talented players who could of been awarded as well.

After the festivities, we were all pumped to play the next day. We had short practice by the pool Wednesday, which was made even better when a ball went into the middle of the pool and Coach Harbin decided to dive into the pool to retrieve the ball. Luckily, the pool was bath-water warm!

Ready to play, we found ourselves down very early in the game off a free kick by the Rice team. After a somewhat sloppy half of soccer, we still had full confidence that we could win the game. With a great second half filled with oppurtunities, it was just another day when the ball would not go in for us. It was a rough way to lose, but we had to find a way to finish a game.

It was an emotional way to end our career for the seniors. As a college athlete, your sport becomes who you are and basically defines a part of you. The four years that I have been in college, it has been a major part of my life. You learn time management, goal setting, life lessons and you create life-long relationships.

I know for a fact that all of us have enjoyed our past four years at UAB and although we will not be with our teammates in future seasons, we will always support them in everything they do and know they will succeed.

So this is the end of our season and I just want to tell all of the fans and readers how much we appreciate your support and please know that we will always try and make things as exciting as possible for all the Blazer fans out there. I have enjoyed doing this for you this season and sharing the many adventures our team has had. As some sports seasons are coming to an end, please remember that some are just starting! Please support the rest of these teams as they go into their seasons trying to find success and more championships for UAB. Thanks again for reading and keeping up with our women's soccer team this year.